Sometimes when I wake up it feels like I am at sea watching a big ocean liner pass by. It is the view from my home in one of the two stepped concrete apartment blocks that make up the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury. When you visit skip the chain stores of the shopping centre below (except for the excellent Renoir Cinema) and instead get an invitation to one of the small but gorgeous flats with their winter gardens or just wander through the spectacular concrete A frames and across the vast sun drenched terraces on podium level.

A taste of Portuguese cafe culture on Golborne Road.

It might sound rather odd to suggest going to a cemetery, but this has to be one of my new favourite places to visit. Getting lost down one of the narrow paths certainly doesn’t make you feel like you’re in London anymore which can be refreshing. Another interesting fact about this place is that the late Amy Winehouse shot her music video for ‘Back to Black’ here.

It paces a Londoner's life. When the tide is low I like wandering on the "beach" and discovering tunnels that take me to the centre of the Earth.

The Nightingale is the antithesis of the hundreds of soulless gastropubs that a lot of decent pubs have recently become and remains everything a proper pub should be. Britain's pubs haven't had it easy lately. The smoking ban and the general effects of the recession have hammered the industry hard. The Nightingale continues to be what it has always been, a proper pub at the heart of the local community. Its annual charity walk has raised nearly £500,000 for good causes in over 30 years and it seems determined to do the things a pub should do and do them properly. Once inside you feel like you could be in a country pub instead of in the middle of South London. There's no jukebox and the TV is hardly ever on, but there’s a great atmosphere with a good set of locals and good drink and food. Bliss.